Minneapolis' Haunted Basement: A gorefest designed to make grownups cry uncle (w/ video)

If you go to the Soap Factory's Haunted Basement attraction this Halloween season, be prepared to smell something bad. Really bad.

It could be the reek of fear coming off you, of course. But it could also be the scent of blood, manure or rotting flesh.

That's because the minds behind the annual Minneapolis scare dungeon are leaving no sensory bases untouched in their efforts to get you to shriek like a 12-year-old girl.

The 12,000-square-foot underground space in a 130-year-old-factory-turned-experimental-art-gallery is a spooky place, even with the lights on.

But every Halloween, the basement is turned it into a pitch-black maze filled with ominous noises, surreal sets and actors trained to scare the heck out of you.

Dolls and mannequins add to the creepiness of the Haunted Basement in the Soap Factory in Minneapolis on Wednesday. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

Unpleasant smells are part of the fun. The nonprofit arts organization has collaborated with "nasal rangers" at a local sensory testing lab to introduce scents to the experience to make you gag with fear.

Now in its sixth year, the artist-designed Haunted Basement has acquired a reputation as being one of the scariest things going.

Noah Bremer, a local theater director who is directing this year's Haunted Basement, said, "The vision is to scare the pants off of people, but to do it in a nontraditional way."

That means eschewing standard Hollywood-inspired scary stuff. So no mummies or Frankenstein monsters or clowns with chainsaws.

Instead, Haunted Basement artists -- who are asked to submit ideas for the scary season back in February -- look for inspiration closer to home.

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Think childhood traumas, terrible dreams, awful bosses.

"It's trying to get to the essence of what really scares people in their real lives," said Birdie Freitag, the Haunted Basement's stage manager.

And like any work of art, part of the intent is to make you think.

"While it is important that it's scary, the concept behind it is also important," said Lillian Egner, Soap Factory program manager.

It's clear, however, that the 150 Haunted Basement staffers and volunteers enjoy provoking screams as much as thoughts. They talk with barely contained glee of patrons -- especially men -- who get freaked out by the dark.

"I feel really good when I can scare some big awesome frat dude," said costume director Alli Olwell. "And when I can make him scream like a woman, that's really good."

"I've seen men cry. I've seen women laughing because their boyfriend cried," Egner said.

Video cameras set up in the Haunted Basement's different rooms are monitored for problems or safety concerns, Olwell said. But they also make for pretty entertaining viewing for those behind the scenes.

"I wish we had audio on them, but we don't," she said.

The attraction, which is limited to adults, typically sells out. More than 10,000 people are expected to go through the Haunted Basement over 21 nights this month, starting Friday, Oct. 5.

Several hundred of them will probably holler "uncle," the safe word that patrons can say if they are too scared and need a staffer to lead them out of the basement.

"Last year, 407 people said uncle. Fully grown men. Fully grown women. Once they get into the blackness, all the bets are off," Egner said. "We've had people who say uncle even before they get into the basement."

The Haunted Basement does offer "'Fraidy Cat" lights-on tours the mornings of Oct. 21 and 28 for $10.

The waiver signed by patrons of the main event warns of the potential of "strong smells, physical contact, dirt, disturbing and adult content.

There will be (fake) blood, and maybe some vomit and urine too, Egner said.

"We've had people pee a little bit. And vomit. Last year we had nine people vomit," she said. "We had an actor vomit because the smell was so intense in their environment."

There's often one uncle-inducing element of the basement that customers single out as too scary, Egner said. One year it was blindfolding people, strapping them into a wheelchair and wheeling them around the basement. Another year it was being stuffed into a coffin.

But in following years, the attendees want to know what happened to the wheelchairs and coffins, she said.

A few basement patrons have another reaction, Egner said: They want to ask one of the scary actors out on a date.